


We Were Just Tumbleweed, Blowing In The Wind.

by Marie_Phantom



Series: Tumbleweed (Blowing In The Wind) [16]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Casual Magic, Loki and Bucky Are Bros, Multi, Past-Miscarriage, The Last Hurrah, Thrúd is Adorable, past-torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 18:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3660408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_Phantom/pseuds/Marie_Phantom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The survivors talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Were Just Tumbleweed, Blowing In The Wind.

**Author's Note:**

> This is it. The last of the series. Brace yourselves, this one is rather introspective and self-searching, as befits the last one. Hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Brief discussion of religious ideas. No flames please.

Bucky woke with a soft sigh, and opened his eyes in the dark. His heart was pounding, and he turned his head to see if he had woken Steve up. He hadn't and he spent a couple of minutes watching Steve breathe, his eyes moving gently beneath his lids and his mouth slightly parted. Bucky reached out a hand to trace his lips, and rubbed a thumb gently along the bottom one. But he took his hand away, and got slowly out of bed. He found his t-shirt and pyjama pants on the ground and slipped them on, walking to the door that led out to the stairs. He wanted coffee, and didn't want to wake Steve up making it.

He got the communal floor and stopped in the door when he saw a figure on the couch. But he relaxed when he saw the moon-illuminated profile of Loki. He was sitting sideways, one hand on his lap and the other dangling off the edge of the back of the couch. At the door opening, Loki turned to see who it was. His green eyes were illuminated like a cats, but Bucky had never been scared of them.

"Nightmare?" he said. Bucky nodded and came into the room. He walked over to the couch and peered over the back, smiling gently when he saw Thrúd lying there. Loki's fingers danced in front of her, magical green figures twinkling in the dark. 

It had been two and a half months since her dramatic entrance, and she had entranced everyone she had ever met, up to and including Nick Fury. She was pale skinned, with the softest, palest blond hair. When she opened her eyes a week later, when Loki was feeding her by himself, she had his green eyes. Loki had closed his own eyes and buried his face into her head, feeling her cease her suckling at his chest.

Betty had once asked how Loki was able to breastfeed without Loki having breasts, and Loki had taken her aside and whenever Thrúd or any of his children had needed to feed, they would cry and his body would automatically respond, nipples peaking slightly to prevent his baby's from suffocating whilst they fed and then subsidising when they were finished.

Bucky smiled at Thrúd, watching her coo at the lights. He then left and turned on the coffee machine, listening to it whir and then drip as it made his coffee. He then added cream and came over, sitting on the other side of Thrúd at her head, bracketing her.

He watched Loki as he entrained his daughter, and thought of the Christmas present for Thrúd stashed in his room. Christmas was a week off, and the Tower was filling with presents for the baby. This baby didn't just belong to Loki and Thor, but to the whole Tower.

Thrúd would twist and turn when Loki's fingers danced. She couldn't quite smile yet, but her eyes lit up with the green fingers. Every so often, she would reach out a hand and catch hold of a finger, shoving it into her mouth and gumming. Loki's fingers didn't finish pulsing magic, and she would squeal and wriggle when he felt the magic fill her up.

"Is that healthy for her?" Bucky asked quietly. Loki didn't look up, but continued to run his fingers down her face whilst she fed on his magic.

"For her? Yes."

"Because you think she has magic?"

Loki smirked. "I know she has magic."

Bucky frowned. "How can you tell?"

Loki finally looked up. The moonlight washed any colour out of his face, and his hair was now past his shoulder blades. It was loose and wavy, curls coming in. "She showed me."

Bucky was amazed. "Already?"

Loki nodded. "Didn't you, darling?" He cooed to Thrúd. "Yes, she showed me. I was feeding her, and she put her hand on my breast and shocked me with blue lightning."

Bucky laughed softly. "Thor's magic then."

Loki laughed as well. "For now. I have a feeling she might have inherited my fire as well, but we'll have to wait and see."

The moonlight glittered off of Bucky's arm, and Thrúd released Loki's fingers to gaze at his arm, mouth open in wonder. She reached out a hand and Bucky lifted his own, letting her pat his cold fingers. She blinked and then squealed, wriggling.

"It's cold, I'm sorry." Bucky said. He made to draw his hand away, but Loki reached over and put his hand on Bucky's drawing it back. He put in on Thrúd's blue sleeper, and she squirmed at the weight.

"Let her get used to it." Loki said. Bucky left his hand there, and after a couple of minutes Thrúd stopped moving and started to fall asleep. She opened her mouth softly, and Loki lifted Bucky's hand gently off her and placed her on his lap, cradling her with his legs and putting on hand behind her head. He rubbed a hand absently along her hairline.

"She trusts you, so much." Bucky said.

"I should hope so." Loki replied under his breath. But he smiled at Bucky and held Bucky's hand, squeezing his fingers gently.

They sit in the silence, listening to Thrúd breathing. Bucky sipped his coffee and looked at the baby on Loki's lap. He suddenly felt a swell of emotion in his throat, and he blinked back tears in his eyes. He looked away, swallowing, but Loki had already seen and was narrowing his eyes. But he let the silence reign for another few minutes.

"Could you have imagined, all those months ago, that you would be sitting here with a baby on your lap and Thor in your bed?" Bucky asked softly. Loki smiled and looked down.

"To be completely honest, 20 months ago I thought I was going to be dead within the week."

"Yes." Bucky nodded. "I remember how you looked, when I first saw you."

"Climbing through that window with the shield on you back. More machine that man, but still belonging to the Captain. They couldn't take that from you, no matter what they did."

Bucky gave Loki a sharp look. "Just as they couldn't take your love of Thor from you."

Loki dipped his head. "Touché."

There was silence again, and Bucky closed his eyes and let the tears gathered in his eyes trickle slowly down his face.

"I thought I would never be happy again, when I fell from that train." He admitted. "As I fell, all I could think about was how Steve was going to be so sad, and how afraid I was. It was so cold, and I thought I was going to die, and the last thing I was going to feel in this earth was fear and sadness."

"That's very natural." Loki said. 

"But selfish."

Loki shook his head. "No, just you being human. When I let go of Odin's staff, I looked into Thor's eyes the whole way down. All I could feel was an overwhelming desire to die. That is selfish."

Bucky shook his head in turn. "That is desperation and sadness."

"But also selfish. But then," Loki shrugged, "I am a selfish and mean creature."

"Self-deprecation doesn't suit you." Bucky admonished.

"As sadness doesn't suit you, and yet, here we are."

Bucky laughed softly, but quietened quickly when Thrúd shifted. He watched, but she merely turned her head and settled back down again.

"Are you happy now?" Loki asked after a while.

Bucky nodded. "I am. But even when I got with Steve, I waited for the catch. I waited for HYDRA to come and get me, or for Steve to realise I was a murderer, or for Tony to kick me out. I spent months worried, even in bed with Steve or with Tony in the lab with my arm, or in the medical wing with Bruce, or training with Natasha or Clint. I was scared."

"You have the right to be scared." Loki said softly. He wasn't looking at Bucky, but was looking out of the window. He swallowed deeply. "I was scared, when I first got here, because I thought I was going to be handed over. I thought I was going to be hurt, so badly, punished and tortured and forced to suffer all of the things I had learned to fear. Even when I was pregnant, you remember what I was like."

"Terrified."

"Mmmmm." Loki hummed. "And yet, I was safe. I had always been safe."

"You got shot." Bucky pointed out. Loki reached up and rubbed a hand over his bare chest where a faint scar sat over his heart. His dressing gown shifted and slipped off on shoulder. He drew his legs up to sit on them, and his pyjama pants rode up to expose his delicate ankles. Had not Bucky already given his heart to Steve the minute he heard him wheeze an insult at him, and were it not the threat of Thor and Mjolnir, Loki was just his type.

"Yes, but nothing has happened since. You are safe, your baby is safe, your children are safe."

"True. I hope."

"You don't need to hope. You are."

Loki smiled grimly. "People like me never settle down. We are just like tumbleweed, blowing in the wind. We turn and tumble, and are never never still."

Bucky snorted with laughter. "I think that term can apply to all of us."

Loki tilted his head. "How so?"

"Steve and I, we always talked about moving, leaving the city for the country. His lungs, you see. He needed clean air when he was small. And I'd like to think that, eventually, we would have pulled out heads out of our asses and made time."

"I rather like that term. 'Made Time'." Loki murmured. Bucky grinned.

"Tony and Pepper have only just got together, and yet, he still moves, tumbles as you say. But he always comes back. The same applies to Clint and Natasha. They move, back and forth, always joined together. They could be on opposite sides of the world, and still be together. And they come the Tower, to be with us. And Bruce, wandering all these years, waiting to come back to the others, and Betty, joining him as soon as he could."

"We wander and wander, as is our nature." Loki commentated.

" _But we always come back_!" Bucky said, putting a hand on Loki's shoulder. "We always come back home, back to where we can be safe, be happy. Be with the people we love." 

"You have a wonderful way with words." Loki said wryly.

Bucky snorted with laughter. "I talked so many doctors out of paying for Steve's medicine that something was bound to have stuck."

Loki laughed as well, and then leaned over and kissed Thrúd on the forehead, just because he could. "I was watching something the other day, and tumbleweed came up. I think that's why I said it earlier, about us being like tumbleweed. Well, when stuff like that comes together in great numbers, nothing can get through. It is an unstoppable force, something to be reckoned with. Something to be admired."

Bucky nodded. He knew the point Loki was making.

"We are the outsiders, the ones that don't fit in. We are the ones society looks down upon, because we don't conform, because we choose to be different. Because we believe in justice when others would have corruption."

"The ones society fear and need at the same time. Above and below them, never fitting in, always on the edge, watching." Loki said.

"Waiting."

"But always together."

Bucky nodded. "Together. That's what's important. We look out for each other. We're family now."

"And us two? The ones who came in last, the ones who bent and twisted, and blew in every direction possible."

"We were caught." Bucky grinned. "We were caught and captured. Brought in by the gentlest hands, tamed and made safe."

Loki snorted. "And somehow, we didn't mind. As long as the people holding our hearts had blond hair and blue eyes, and the bodies of gods, we didn't mind."

"To be fair, I love Steve when a stiff breeze would have blown him over."

"Blond hair, blue eyes."

Bucky nodded.

"Have you ever wandered, how it came to be?" Loki said. Bucky looked over, confused.

"What came to be?"

"Your soul. Steve's soul. Coming together in such a way. The astronomical odds of two compatible people meeting at the same time, in the same place." Loki looked at Bucky with glowing eyes. "It's a rare thing."

"What about you and Thor?" Bucky pointed out.

Loki shrugged. "We would never have met had Odin not brought us together. Honestly, it's about the one thing I grateful to him for. He could have left me to die on the ice, but he let me live."

Bucky laughed. "Don't tell me you don't believe in higher power. The odds of you and Thor meeting and loving each other, so much you would bend space and time to let him live, let him be happy with someone else the than you. Fate is cruel, but it is just in some ways."

"How can you possibly say that?" Loki looked at Bucky with an anguished expression on his face. "How can you say that, when the most horrible things have happened to us. I have lost children, been shown the contents of my own body, have glimpsed into the blackest regions of my soul. And you," he gestured to all of Bucky. "The things that have been done to you."

Bucky thought about the dream that had woken him up. He thought about his voice, hoarse with screaming, as they sawed that was left of his arm off without anaesthetic. How he had twisted and cried, and vomited and yelled, and nothing had happened.

"Yes." He said. His voice was soft and hoarse, and he swallowed against the memories. He looked at the baby, and she twitched and frowned, so Bucky quickly looked away. "What happened to me should never have happened to any other person in the world. I wish I was a better person, so I could say that I would not wish it upon my greatest enemies, but I'm not. I am cruel. I spent so many times in these past few months looking at the files from HYDRA, looking at people who I fought with, who trained me to kill. Who took away everything that I was and more besides, and I wish I was the one with the hand around their throat, squeezing the life from them and watching their eyes turn cold."

"Then how can you say that fate is just?" Loki asked desperately. Bucky looked at him, confused.

"You really can't see it, can you?"

Loki tilted his head at him. "No."

"Loki, we're alive."

Loki stopped moving. Even his fingers stopped moving against Thrúd's head. He looked at Bucky with wet eyes, and Bucky reached over and took his hand.

"Loki, we're alive. After everything fate threw at us, everything that could have killed us, we lived. Life has been particularly cruel to us. Cruel to me, being born in the wrong time with Steve. Being separated from him. Being made, and unmade, and made again but differently. Having to see Steve, and not recognise him, and have to fight every instinct that had been forced on me that told me to kill him.

"And you," it was his turn to gesture at Loki, "you were brought alongside the man you loved but lived with as a brother. You were lied to, forced into a role you didn't want. You fell into the hands of beings who did the most deplorable things to you, who tried to break your spirit, who raised and lowered your hopes so often and so quickly it's amazing you believe in anything at all. And you were defeated, and you were imprisoned, and your mother was killed, and you died and let Thor go off with someone else.

" _And we came back._ " 

Loki released his breath, and bent his head. His face was wet, and he sniffled occasionally.

"We came back from everything life threw at us. We came back, and found our men, and your kids, and you've just had a baby."

Loki smiled. "Yes."

"Loki, everything that ever happened to us shaped us into the people we are now. I wouldn't want to go back and do it again, but I can learn from the lessons that life has dealt me. I have learnt, and lived from that, and I can safely move on."

"What about regrets?" Loki asked slyly, but Bucky was used to Loki.

"I have plenty of regrets." Bucky shrugged. "Many, many things that I have done that I wish I could have changed, whether coerced or not. But like I said, everything is about life lessons. Learn from what you have done, and move on. And perhaps, if fate is kind to you, you can have a good time whilst living. I believe that we've earned it."

"You speak as though our current life was not something we sculpted ourselves. Do you believe in a higher power, someone up there who sees your trials and tribulations and decides to reward you based on what life has put you through?"

Bucky looked at Loki. "I was raised a Catholic."

Loki smirked. "Not an answer."

Bucky sighed and ran a hand through his shoulder length hair. He contemplated his answer. "I believe that life rewards you based on the weight of your soul. I've got to have something good in here," he thumped his chest, where his heart was, "or I would have died on that bank after I saved Steve from the river. But instead, I kept going, and now, here I am. I live in a Tower with friends whom I love, with a baby to look after and the man I adore in my bed. I'd like to think that someone took a look at my life, then weighed my soul against it, and decided I needed a break."

Loki sighed. He laid his head against the back of the couch and looked at Thrúd sleeping in his lap.

"What about you?" Bucky asked.

"Hhhhmmm?"

"Do you believe in a higher power?"

Loki shuddered. "I prefer to believe in myself controlling my own fate. The idea of someone else pulling the strings," he shuddered. "I have spent too long at the control of others. I am in charge of Loki."

Bucky nodded. "And all this?" He gestured to the room, to the Tower in general, and to the baby on his lap. "Is this in you hands?"

Loki smiled softly. "Perhaps there is something to the notion of fate rewarding those who have suffered. But still, I am firmly in control now, and I intend to stay that way."

"Loki's rule?"

Loki snickered softly. "Not quite. Just in control of my own life, my own fate. My own happiness."

They sat in silence, both staring out of the window. The moon move across the sky, and shadows changed.

Without looking at Loki, Bucky asked softly "Are you happy now?"

Loki looked at Bucky in the dark. His green eyes glittered, and his smile was soft. "Yes." He said quietly, holding his baby to his chest. "Yes. I am happy now."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The sunrise lit up the room with a soft glow. 

The men watched and closed their eyes against the brightness. They listened to their family move about them.

They held hands as they sat back, getting comfortable.

They had survived.

They were happy. 

And Loki and Bucky were alive.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaand, that's it! Thank you to everyone who stuck with me, who reviewed and gave kudos and kept me going. To all those who came to this after I finished, I hope you enjoyed it. I will honestly miss this series, it's my first proper baby on this site and I almost didn't want to finish. I hope I gave everyone who read as much joy as I did writing it.
> 
> Next story hint: Castle Of Glass will be up within a week!


End file.
